Assessing the Food Security Status and Production Constraints of Cocoa Farming Households in the Ashanti Region

Abstract

Food security is when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Foreign income generated from cocoa production serves as the backbone of the economy of Ghana, yet the high poverty prevalence amongst cocoa farming households affect greatly their food security status which in the long run leads to low production outputs. Therefore, this study seeks to assess the food security status and production constraints facing cocoa farming households in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. A multistage sampling technique was used to select the households that were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. In all, 260 household heads were interviewed that is, 130 households from Asante Akim South and Ahafo Ano South Districts. The study adopted the RDCI approach using the IFPRI/GSS standards and the results revealed that, 73% and 27% of the households were food secure and insecure respectively. The Logit regression used to estimate the determinants of food security status of cocoa farming households showed six (6) of the independent variables (age of household head, household size, dependency ratio, own food production, adult working income and value of economic assets) to be statistically significant. Only own food production and value of economic assets influenced food security of the households positively. The study showed that, the most pressing constraints of cocoa production are high cost of inputs, pest and diseases and inadequate supply of government subsidized input chemicals. It was then recommended that government subventions focused on the cocoa sector such as fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides should be delivered to the farmers on time and also efforts should be made to improve income earning capacity of households and access to credit by the needy. Family planning education should be intensified in order to reduce their dependency ratio.